GREEN Tool offers evidence-based guidance for school garden success

(Reuters Health) – Planting a successful school garden requires a
lot more than just soil, seeds and water, say researchers who
have come up with a planning tool that can help ensure school
gardens thrive and endure.

A teacher or parent may be the driving force behind getting a
garden started, but once the teacher leaves the school, or the
parent’s child graduates, gardens can wither away unless they
have been well integrated into the school community, the study
team writes in Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

School gardens have a host of health and educational benefits,
from getting kids to eat more fruits and vegetables to boosting
academic achievement in science, math and reading, they write.

To better understand what it takes to help a garden thrive, Kate
Gardner Burt of Lehman College in New York City and her
colleagues looked at successful gardens at 21 local elementary
and middle schools, and mapped out the characteristics of gardens
that played an enduring role in the life of the school.

Based on these findings, Burt and colleagues defined a four-level
process toward successful school garden integration. Dubbed the
GREEN Tool, it’s the first evidence-based guide to planting and
nurturing sustainable school gardens, the researchers say.

Among the common themes for success that emerged in the research,
Burt noted in a telephone interview, was that schools that
established a garden committee early on were able to cope with
challenges more successfully.

“The other really important piece to integrating the garden that
consistently came up in my discussions and interviews was the
idea of professional development,” she added. “Many teachers who
don’t have horticultural experience might be really intimidated
to get into the garden.”

Professional development sessions that focused on the garden -
even informal ones hosted by a garden coordinator at lunch or
after school - can help motivate teachers and build their
confidence, she added.

Having neighborhood partners and reliable funding for the garden
were found to be important keys to sustainability. The planning
of the physical garden space and planning for upkeep were also
identified as critical components.

Connecting the garden to curriculum was another key step. Once
teachers become more comfortable with the garden, they can begin
to see the possibilities for teaching through planting and
gardening, Burt said. “Using gardens as a mechanism to teach
math, that opens teachers up to all kinds of grant possibilities
and opportunities.”

In the surveys, for example, more than 95 percent of the schools
used the garden for teaching science or nutrition classes.
Another 76 percent used it to teach agriculture, 71 percent used
the garden for English language arts, 67 percent used it for
math, 62 percent for environmental science, history, health and
home economics, and 57 percent of schools used the garden for art
class.

Tying school gardens to academics can be another way to
strengthen their roots, Burt said. “If students can learn any of
the core academic subjects better by using the garden, then we
can provide more compelling evidence for why gardening should be
sustained in schools.”

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2pH37ll Journal of the Academy of Nutrition
and Dietetics, online April 4, 2017.

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